Final Score: Vancouver FC 0-4 Halifax Wanderers FC
Goalscorers: Telfer 9′, 18′, Nimick 77′, 90′ (pen.)
Game of the 2024 season: 43
CPL match: 527
Match in a minute or less
For the first time in 2024, the Halifax Wanderers have won in CPL play, as they defeated Vancouver FC 4-0 at Willoughby Community Park to snap a nine-game winless streak to start this season.
The Wanderers got off to a flying start to this game, too, as they pushed for that first win. To their credit, they made the most of that start, as Ryan Telfer opened the scoring with a deft breakaway finish on a Clément Bayiha pass in the 9th minute, before completing his brace with a curled finish into the top corner in the 18th minute.
Then, on the other side of halftime, the Wanderers got a scare in the 68th minute, as Andre Rampersad was sent off for a high boot, putting them down a player. Despite that, the Wanderers ensured they’d see the win over the line in style, with Dan Nimick confirming the win with a header in the 77th minute to make it 3-0, before he then further cemented the victory with a penalty goal in the 90th minute to make it 4-0, allowing his team to earn that long-awaited victory rather comfortable in the end.
Three Observations
Wanderers finally get over hump and get first win in style
This win has been a long time coming for the Wanderers, who might’ve felt that they’d never win again after the last few weeks had gone for them.
It all started with a draw against Atlético Ottawa in their seventh game of the season on June 2nd, in which the Wanderers led 2-0 and looked likely to find that first win but then drew 2-2 after an 101st minute equalizer from Alberto Zapater. Then, the next week, they drew Pacific 0-0 on June 8th despite spending nearly 40 minutes up a player, nearly losing it late despite that. Lastly, their strange luck continued against Forge on June 15th, as Forge scored a 92nd minute equalizer through Kwasi Poku after the Wanderers led 2-1 heading into extra time.
Because of that, while the Wanderers might’ve already been frustrated that they’d gone nine games without a win to begin the season, they’ll have been equally as disappointed with how close they’d been to winning, too, having come short at the finish line on multiple occasions.
Yet, that’s likely why head coach Patrice Gheisar got some déjà-vù when Rampersad was sent off in the 68th minute of this game. Against Ottawa, his team faced a similar situation, as they were up 2-1 when Tiago Coimbra was sent off, putting them down a player as Ottawa mounted a late push that ultimately yielded an equalizer.
Against a Vancouver side who can score goals in bunches, it felt like the extra space could be a huge asset for them, and with 20 minutes to push for an equalizer, Gheisar and his team had to have been feeling nervous, and he admitted as much after the game.
“I swear, I don’t know what I did in a past life, or what I’ve done to have that kind of emotional roller coaster, but it felt like Ottawa with how things were happening,” Gheisar said with a smile.
“But what resilience from our group to come back and score two more after the red card,” he added.
To the Wanderers’ credit, they didn’t show any nerves in their play despite the sending off. In fact, the red card seemed to provide them a boost, as they found another gear when down a player.
Knowing how important a win like this could be for them after their slow start, they were willing to battle to get it across the line, and how they were able to add two goals while still keeping Vancouver away from their goal reflects that.
Because of that, they were full value for this victory, as they did what they needed to do from minute one to minute 90 to win, and the score reflects that.
Plus, it’s tough to highlight which part of their game shone brighter in this one, either.
Defensively, they did well to keep Vancouver quiet, holding them to just 0.97 xG on 13 shots, limiting them to just 17 touches and five shots in the box, even despite Vancouver’s late push. Then, offensively, they didn’t just score more than two goals in a game for the first time in 2024, but one-upped that by scoring four in a game for the first time in club history, showing how impressive their offensive performance was.
Yet, this has been a long time coming for the Wanderers, who felt they were due some luck to go their way, as they’d certainly earned some, and they got that in this game.
“I’ve learned a lot personally, not to let these things bother, because sure, you have your first win, but the first one doesn’t make a difference, because it’s not like we’re done – we want to keep winning,” Gheisar said. “So for me I think the biggest word (to describe this win) would be satisfaction, to see all of the work we’ve done start to come forward and pay off, because we can see whatever we want, but at times we you can start to have doubts in your mind about bad fortune and bad luck, but these things can’t exist, you just have to work harder, you have to keep pushing, and I thought we did that today.
“I mean look at that scenario, Julian (Dunn) got hurt early, Zach Fernandez got injured, so we had to burn two substitute windows, we got a red card, but all credit to the guys (for overcoming that).”
Now, the key is for the Wanderers to build on this, as this win will mean nothing if they don’t follow up with a string of positive results, but that doesn’t meant they can’t enjoy the victory, either. Having worked as hard as they did to make it happen, having gone over eight months since the last one, they’ll relish every moment of it, and then get back to work to ensure that feeling doesn’t go away anytime soon.
“This was coming,” Nimick said. “With the performances we’d put in, I think we’ve built so much confidence over the last few games, and you’ve seen that today, and this is just going to fuel us even more.”
“We’re going to bring this back home to Wanderers Grounds and put a run together here, as we know that we haven’t been playing like a last place team, and we’ve just proved that today.”
“Flat” Vancouver side unable to match Wanderers’ intensity in frustrating loss
Losses are a part of sports. It’s rare to see a team to go a full season without losing, as sometimes luck won’t be on your side, no matter how hard you try.
Because of that, some won’t get too frustrated after a defeat, knowing that it just wasn’t their day, and that if they keep their head down and get back to work, things will turn around.
Conversely, while teams won’t get too hung up over losing one game, it’s different if the way in which you lose is not up to their standard, as it’s one thing to get unlucky on the day and lose – it’s the other to not create your luck altogether.
That was one of those games for Vancouver, and their mood afterwards reflected it, as defender Rocco Romeo called it “humbling”, and head coach Afshin Ghotbi called it “unacceptable”.
“I said it in a warm up, and I think a couple of guys echoed it, as well, we were just flat,” Romeo said. “I’m not too sure if it was our preparation in the week, or if it was our mentality coming into the game since they were the last place team and we took that for granted of it with us being undefeated at home and maybe we carried that arrogance into this game.”
“I think now this can be a good thing for our humility, we knew what could’ve happened if we would’ve won which is to jump back into second place, but now we face a very pivotal moment right now in the season, as we got humbled.”
Certainly, Romeo was pretty spot-on with his assessment, as Vancouver just looked far off their usual standard from this season, looking anything like the team that could’ve pushed up to second place in the table with a win as Romeo mentioned there. Instead, they struggled out of the gates, and then couldn’t get back into it even when Halifax gave them a lifeline with the red card, as they were unable to match the intensity the Wanderers found after they went down a player.
“We had our (pre-game) meeting with presentations and animation videos, and I explained to them that this Halifax team, here is where they are in the table, yes, but if you look at their last three games, you look at how close they were to winning, they were out-playing opponents and creating chances,” Ghotbi said. “But they were losing or drawing games because of mental errors and individual mistakes, and because they’d lost belief. And those are the worst teams to play, so coming into this game. we knew that they’d be one of the hardest teams to play right now, because they just couldn’t wait to get a result, and they were going to do everything they could to get it.”
That’ll frustrate Vancouver, because if there’s one thing they’ve done consistently over the year, it was to be ready for battle and ready to work for their results, and they just seemed to lack the energy required to do that in this game.
Along with a surprise tactical shift, as they pushed from their usual 4-2-2-2 to play more of a 4-1-4-1 with centre-back Allan Enyou playing as a defensive midfielder to try and limit Halifax in the midfield, that led to a disjointed Vancouver performance, as they also didn’t look comfortable in their set-up, either. Especially given that Halifax was bypassing their midfield by playing more directly, which also seemed to catch Vancouver off-guard, that only added to their misery.
Yet, given that they then switched back to their preferred formation and didn’t look any more comfortable just showed that this wasn’t going to be their day no matter what they did, and that they’ll now have to hit the reset button, quickly.
With their next match coming on Thursday against rivals Pacific, they’ll have to find a way to flush this match out of their system, and look to bring everything they can to that matchup, knowing that Pacific will do the same.
Because of that, look for Vancouver to have a short memory, and look to bring their trademark intensity back to the table in their derby match.
“We’re a resilient group,” Romeo said. “It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t bounce back in today’s match, but there’s no better opportunity to do so than in a derby.”
Halifax’s front three sparks long-awaited offensive outburst
It’s no secret – goals have been hard to come by for the Halifax Wanderers in 2024. Having entered this game last in goals for with eight despite sitting first in xG (per OPTA), they felt that luck was due to turn soon.
To be fair, it had started to turn as of late – they’d scored two goals in two of their last three matches after failing to find the net more than once in their first six games, but having underperformed their xG by nearly seven goals, they knew that luck was going to turn.
Certainly, that seemed to be reflected in their start to this game, as they came flying out of the gates, eager to get on the board early. In particular, Ryan Telfer was looking dangerous, as he immediately brought a dangerous threat in behind Vancouver’s defence, but he was just the final piece of what was setting up to be a dangerous Halifax attacking performance.
Led by the duo of wingers Massimo Ferrin and Clément Bayiha, who were causing all sorts of problems on the flanks, and then supported by Halifax’s midfield trio of Lorenzo Callegari, Andre Rampersad and Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé, that group worked well together to push the ball forward and towards Telfer, especially early on.
Interestingly, however, a large part of Halifax’s success came from their work not with the ball, but without it, as they were extremely compact defensively, doing well to suffocate space in central areas. Through that, they were able to disrupt Vancouver in possession, while also creating several key transitional moments, as they were able to spring the ball forward quickly whenever they won it back.
Then, through the threat that Ferrin and Bayiha provided out wide, that ended up being a key avenue of success for Halifax, who were able to find that duo in several dangerous spaces, which led Ferrin to win a penalty, create a big chance and fire two shots towards goal, while Bayiha created two chances of his own and chipped in an assist.
That ended up giving a big boost to Telfer, too, who knew that as long as he made the right runs, his wide players would find him, with there being no better example of that than his first goal, in which Bayiha found him with a surgical pass into the box.
Yet, it shows that there could be a nice attacking trio forming between Telfer, Bayiha and Ferrin, especially after the week prior, in which Ferrin had two goals and Bayiha an assist, giving each of the three at least two goal contributions across these two games with Telfer’s two goals, Ferrin’s two goals and Bayiha’s two assists. This has been building, to be fair, especially since Bayiha’s arrival at the end of May, but that they’ve really taken that step forward in their last two games is a positive sign of where it can now go.
Especially given that they’ve also got depth names to push them forward, such as Giorgio Probo and Vitor Dias, the former of which produced an assist on Nimick’s first goal, it shows that the Wanderers have the pieces to score goals, and that they’ve now got a formula to look at when it comes to producing more offence.
“It’s no secret that we’ve struggled for goals, but I think now our guys are flying,” Nimick said. “We’ve got Clément (Bayiha), Massimo (Ferrin) and (Ryan) Telfer up front, Jérémy (Gagnon-Laparé) in midfiekd, and then if you look at our bench, I think it’s one of the best benches in the league with Giorgio (Probo), Vitor (Dias), who has been playing well the past few weeks, as has Giorgio coming off the bench, we have Riley (Ferrazzo), too, I mean, they’re all incredible players, we have incredible depth, so we’re not talking like a last place team, our confidence is through the roof, and now we’re just looking to build off it.”
Now, it’ll be interesting to see how that front three continues to progress, in particular. With Bayiha’s speed and final pass, Ferrin’s ability to find space and Telfer’s instincts and finishing, these three appear to complement each other quite nicely, and their play together despite not having much time to grow their chemistry reflects that.
Therefore, look for them to take a step forward in weeks to come, building off these strong two games, giving the Wanderers a reliable source of offence to rely on as they look to put their early-season attacking woes behind them.
“When Massimo (Ferrin plays like he did) today and last week, he’s hard to defend,” Gheisar explained. “So I was very happy to see him (do well), but the thing about Massimo is that he really is a player that enjoys playing with other players who complement him, and Ryan (Telfer) has really settled in with him, scored two great goals and his back to goal game was great, I don’t know how many fouls he won today, and then Clément (Bayiha) just brings a different look to us, because we have a lot of pure footballers in this squad, but having a (speedy) release player that can also play football, it really gives a lot of problems to defenders, (which is why) he’s been really a great addition to the team.”
CanPL.ca Player of the Match
Dan Nimick, Halifax Wanderers FC
Despite being called into action in the 25th minute after an injury to Julian Dunn, Nimick shone on his return from an injury that kept him out for Halifax’s last two games, helping his team keep their clean sheet while also chipping in with two goals in his time on the pitch.
Along with some key interventions in his own box, as he finished with two tackles, two clearances, three recoveries and four out of seven duels won, it was a strong showing from the Halifax centre back off the bench, as he helped play a key role in his team’s victory.
What’s next?
Vancouver FC will head out on the road, but for a short trip, as they’ll take the ferry over to Vancouver Island to face rivals Pacific FC in the Salish Sea Derby at Starlight Stadium on Thursday, June 27 (7:30 p.m. PT). Meanwhile, the Wanderers will make the cross-country trip back to Halifax, as a home clash with Cavalry awaits them at Wanderers Grounds on Monday, July 1st (1 p.m. MT/4 p.m. AT).
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